


Helmig the Hero: In Which Social Order Depends on Scraps of Meat

by Hawkbringer



Series: Helmig and Fridann [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Medieval, Ambiguous Age, Ambiguous Relationships, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Armed Conflict, Boys In Love, Camping, Diplomacy, Fairy Tale Elements, Families of Choice, Forehead Touching, Found Family, Fridann doesn't eat meat, Fridann has a guardian angel, Fridann has been hurt in the past, Fridann the Negotiator, Friends to Lovers, Harassment, Helmig is not so good with words, Hero's Journey, Historical Fantasy, Ignoring peerage protocol, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Intimidation, M/M, Massage, Meat eating, Mentors, Military, Military Recruitment, More like a tent but whatever, Negotiation does not work like this IRL, Not vegan friendly, Orphans, Plots and Machinations, Politics, Revolution, Roughing It, Serfs & Lords, Sharing a Bed, Teenager saves the day plot, Tropes, Underage Drinking, Usurping the Throne, Witches that provide magical tea, a bucket of half-frozen fish, nausea & vomiting (brief mention), now it's the cowbell as alarm clock, period-typical lack of food safety, was the worst thing in Helmig's life before this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-31
Updated: 2018-12-31
Packaged: 2019-10-01 13:19:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 15,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17244947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hawkbringer/pseuds/Hawkbringer
Summary: Swept up and recruited by the military for a meaningless war, orphan street-rat Helmig tries his luck at this new lifestyle, meeting new friends and allies along the way.





	1. The urchin grew up on the streets

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this for a college class circa 2013, where I couldn't make it as explicitly gay as I wanted to, but the homoerotic undertones are entirely purposeful. I'm pretty proud of this one! The writing style is unusual for me, I tried to keep it fairly high-falutin' for that old-fashioned-fantasy-story feel, but I'm sure it breaks down in places. No beta-reader, of course.
> 
> Plot-wise, this story definitely has room for a requited-love slow-burn romantic epilogue. 
> 
> Roughly Medieval-Europe setting, faint hints of magic, but not all that fantastical, really. I got a tad heavy-handed with the diplomacy-and-politics angle towards the end, yes, but you can forgive me for that, right? The main pairing has a relationship similar to a more-chill version of Scorpio and Albus Severus, but I wrote this before reading Cursed Child.

Helmig is a street rat, an urchin, been living on the streets and off of dumpings, scraps, and alms since before he can remember. He has an informal family, of course he does. Kids his age, younger, older. A few crazies, one or two _witches_ , and that was always a point of boasting pride among the young ones. The witches are extremely useful in the Cold Time, when fresh scraps are hard to find. Not all the children have seen them, but Helmig is visited one day by a woman in a ratty shawl, several ratty shawls, in fact, and she bequeaths to him a cup of hot water with a strange taste. She calls it _tea_ , and Helmig has never heard of it. The hot water warms his bones, the strange taste quickens his blood, and he feels healthier than he has in weeks. The awed shine in his eyes as he looks up at his ratty-shawled angel is thanks enough for the witch, who has been to far corners of the land, and has seen children in far greater peril than he express less gratitude. Before the boy can even part his lips in thanks, she is turning, leaving, without a word. Helmig remembers this street, this alleyway, and finds her there with her healing tea just often enough, that winter, to keep his skinny bones alive. 

A taller, older, urchin girl takes pity on Helmig that winter, that terrible winter, and throws him a scrap of meat one day. It hits him in the chest and he looks up in confusion at the culprit. The taller urchin assures him it is edible, and Helmig immediately goes to his younger, starving friends and they plot to take advantage of the elder’s kindness. 

On their behalf, Helmig finds and begs the older one for scraps the next week. 

When Helmig, not realizing he was supposed to lie, tells her he is trying to feed his friends as well, she scowls and tells him they should find their own stores of food. The bean-seller is always looking to get rid of his wares in winter, and beans keep well if packed in snow. 

Helmig’s shoulders slump and he slinks back to the other urchins. 

“The plan didn’t work,” he informs them, sad to see so many crestfallen faces. “She told us to each find our own providers. When you do, come back here. Next week,” he tells them, a sudden idea occurring to him. So they do, and with their combined pitiful scraps, that small urchin family is able to feed all its members that winter. That lesson is one Helmig never forgets. 

~*~

Men come into town. 

Men always come into town, passing through on their way to somewhere else, somewhere better. Sometimes they buy the miller’s breads. Mostly, they do not. Almost all of them leave shortly after arriving. None of them look twice at a street urchin. 

Until one day, many years after that most terrible of winters, they do. 

~*~

One does, at least, scanning the few peasants so pitifully wandering about the swill-soaked streets, going about what passes for a life out here in the North. These men ride on horses, unusual for this area. Most men walk beside their horses, as the beasts carry the wares for market. Seated even higher than their faraway, possibly noble, birth puts them, such men, the men on horses, rarely look down at all. But this time, they do. 

They are looking for able-bodied men to add to their ranks, because there are ominous mutterings coming from pages sent East, and the king of the North (who lives far to the South of this particular unremarkable village) desires a larger army to patrol the border, as a show of force. Thus are his emissaries looking for men. 

Helmig is hardly a man, hardly as tall as even the short, rotund miller of the town, but one horseman catches his eye as he stands outside a shop he can never afford to enter, one foot up and back against the wall, utterly defensive posture belied by his shining, curious eyes. The horseman pulls up short, causing the strung-out line of patrolmen to circle and weave around him. The other men shout questions at him, which he ignores. He speaks loudly, clear as the bell at noontime, still holding Helmig’s eyes. 

“Youth! By the door there!” 

He points, unnecessarily. 

Helmig knows who he is talking to. 

“Do you want a better life than this?” The man is hardly well-dressed, but no skin shows from his neck to his toes and to own that much summer clothing is an accomplishment of wealth, indeed. 

Helmig nods, silent. 

The man’s lips peel back into a smile, but Helmig sees that it does not reach his eyes. “Then mount my horse, boy. We shall ride, together, to a brighter future!” He has no sword drawn with which to gesture grandly, but Helmig is certain this man is going to rectify that at his earliest opportunity. 

Helmig is moving before the words finish echoing across the narrow street. The baker calls out behind him, only his name, and Helmig replies, “Tell them I’m not coming back.” The baker nods, and by his gossiping, word is spread. All the street urchins learn Helmig is not coming back. The urchins are stringy creatures, no strangers to deaths amongst their slim numbers, and so they do not mourn Helmig’s passing, when they hear of it, so much as mutter jealously under their breaths and swap completely uninformed fictions regarding the ‘better life’ he is sure to have gone to. 

~*~

Helmig was right, and half-right, when he said he would not return. Helmig the street rat is indeed never coming back. But Helmig the Diplomat, Helmig the Generous, Helmig the Hero, does in fact return.


	2. And when he is swept away

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Helmig's first few hours with the military are harsh and unpleasant, but that's nothing new to him. He gets food, new clothes, and even gets to sleep beneath a tent, so he counts it as an improvement.

“I’ve no idea where we’re going,” the man whose back Helmig is plastered against in a too-small saddle whispers back to him, halfway out of the village limits. Helmig sees farms and fields all around, marveling at the sheer amount of food. His stomach voices its complaint that Helmig, that none of the urchins, thought to appropriate food from _this_ seemingly unending source. Looking closer, Helmig sees the plants are unripe, and supposes that is why. 

“What do you mean?” he hisses in return, arms curled tight around stinking leather and flimsy, dented metal. 

He has never ridden on a horse. 

“I’m just like you,” the man tells him, head half turned, keeping one eye on the horse’s head to keep the motion-sickness at bay. “I joined a few days ago, from a village to the east of here. I had nothing before they spotted me. They gave me _clothes,_ boy!” 

The man clearly thinks himself older than Helmig, and Helmig has not the facts to refute him - he does not know his own age. 

“And a ration of... Well, it hasn't poisoned me yet.” Helmig thinks this does not bode well for his own constitution, which has, over several winters, become used to the witch’s tea. 

“I’ll introduce you when we make camp. Shouldn't be long now.” He turns his head more fully. “You look just like me when I was younger. My name is Liom.” 

“Helmig,” Helmig replies, and Liom nods. “Good strong name,” he murmurs, half to himself. They do not talk again for hours more, until the sun begins to set, and camp is made.

~*~

Liom does introduce him to the company’s commander, a sturdy man with thick legs they call Commander. Simply that. 

_Perhaps his true name is Eunice,_ Helmig thinks unkindly as he stands before a grown version of his daily tormentors. _This one will not be so easy to best in a fist-fight._

He does not make a sound. 

“Commander, I have recruited this man--” (this is the first and only time Liom calls Helmig a man,) “--from the noontime town. He has no skill with riding--” 

Helmig wills his face not to flush-- 

“--but he is quick on his feet. A foot-soldier for the ranks, I think. He is clearly of sturdy constitution - the frosts have barely melted, yet his body is not thin!” 

_Comes of eating rat-skins and drinking lard,_ Helmig informs Liom in his head. 

The Commander stares Helmig down. Helmig wonders if all the men who hold power in the world stare so contemptuously at boys like himself. 

“I agree,” the Commander rumbles eventually, and Helmig refuses to let his knees shake. 

“Luk! Tuk! Outfit him! The...smallest trousers you can find,” he added, lips curling unpleasantly as he denigrates Helmig’s height. 

He responds by curling his spine upward and striding from the room at full height, which Liom finds vaguely amusing and the Commander understands as an act of posturing. 

He is quite well-versed, himself, of course.

~*~

The clothes they give him do not fit, but Helmig adds them to the rags he was wearing and the additions are a boon, he must admit. The jeers and sneers of Luk and Tuk are easily ignored, not nearly creative enough to even be worth his attention. 

At one point, Luk’s hand smoothes down Helmig’s chest unnecessarily, making a comment about women he’s seen with more hair, and Helmig simply shoots him a very unimpressed glance. Luk sneers at it, but takes his hand away and continues his task of measuring Helmig, and doing a very shoddy job. 

Helmig mentally puts the incident away, filed under ‘victories.’ He takes what he can get in this loud, rough, makeshift camp full of men who do not look at him at _all_ as he walks past. That is very strange, but he supposes there may be some test he has to pass, as the older urchin boys would not look at him either, when he was small, till he twisted the head off a rat with his bare hands. 

Helmig trudges out of the small tent, which Luk and Tuk immediately begin rearranging for sleep, and scans the filthy group. Most are already asleep in their tents, but the sun is barely past evening meal. He wonders if riding horses is a chore more tiring than working the mills. 

Liom spots him and waves him into his tent. There is, in fact, room for two grown men to sleep side-by-side. But barely. 

“I scrounged up a bedroll,” Liom tells him, spreading it out on the ground. 

Helmig hesitates, as he has never slept on something so luxuriously padded, and wonders how he will. 

“Unless you _want_ to sleep on the bare ground?” Liom asks with a quirk of his lips. 

“I’ll...take the bedroll,” Helmig answers, mouth quirking in answer in spite of himself. 

“Good, good,” Liom murmurs to himself, fluffing out his own and curling up under the top half. “Sleep well!” he salutes vaguely, and rolls over. 

“You too,” Helmig mutters, leaving out the traditional urchin-child ending, _If the rats don’t get you first._

He shuffles inside the halves of his new bedroll and wonders at the immediate and gratifying heat. Winter has not yet given up its grasp of the nights, though it has yielded the days. 

Helmig does not sleep well - Liom is an excessively talkative companion, even in his sleep - but he sleeps, and that is enough.

~*~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wondering what Luk and Tuk look and sound like? Picture grizzled older versions of the twins from How to Train Your Dragon.


	3. His destiny will find him

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the first town the military's march takes him to, Helmig meets his soulmate. Not that he has the words to describe it like that. He just knows he can't let this person slip away.

The whole company wakes before daybreak to an ear-splitting cowbell being rattled inches from their heads as the ringer walks up and down the rows of shoddy tents.

Liom is instantly awake and alert, but less instantly than Helmig is, who has never been woken by _a cowbell in his ear,_ of all things. By rocks thrown at him, yes, and on one memorable occasion, a bucket full of half-frozen fish, but not by _a cowbell._

He has to admit its effectiveness, however, as the men around him grumble, hastily and shoddily roll up their make-shift beds, and tend to their horses. 

A brown mush of some kind is served, a bowl each, as breakfast, and Helmig eats his far too fast. It sits heavy in his stomach, an unpleasant feeling that does not at all diminish when Liom pulls him up onto the saddle behind him again, and they set off at a sedate loping walk toward the next town. 

Helmig attempts the entire time to keep his breakfast in his stomach. 

He is not successful. 

When he fails, Liom is silent but for a cluck of the tongue, and hands him a short brown stick that he insists is edible. He calls it jerky, and Helmig takes care to eat it much more slowly, because the horses will not stop their implacable pace, and his stomach aches twice as badly now, from the lack of breakfast and from the strain of its ejection. But food is food, and Helmig has no desire to waste it. 

~*~

Nearing noon-time, the company passes through another town, one Helmig has heard of, but never seen. They have more cows here, fewer farmers, and the town has no local miller. The soldiers are quick to stop, some watering their horses at the local trough, others watering themselves at the local tavern. 

Helmig wonders how a horse would walk, if _it_ drank that much ale. 

Liom is reluctant to stop, but Helmig is very keen on acquiring more of that jerky, and is willing to trade his new clothes for it. Liom advises him not to, but doesn’t keep that close an eye on Helmig as he knots the horse’s rope at the watering trough. 

The Commander is standing in the village square – which fills a much larger area than the one in Helmig’s town – and proclaiming to all the Northern King’s need for strong young men to defend the Eastern Border. Helmig snorts as he slinks off toward the back of the butcher’s shop, eager to scrounge for meat. 

He is not alone. Several urchins and drunkards are already there, keeping a low profile in the shadows and around corners. Helmig does not pretend that he cannot see them. He slips around a corner and whispers to the shadow beside him, “Anything good today?” 

The urchin replies, “Not sure. The wife dumps the scraps after the noon-time rush. It should be any minute now.” 

Helmig nods, then, wondering if his companion can see it, adds, “I’ll wait with you.” 

“Aren't you with the army-men over there? They don’t _feed_ you?” The voice sounds vaguely incredulous. Helmig half-smiles. 

“Not really,” he says, recalling breakfast. “Besides, they want me to _pay_ for meat!” he whispers, mock-outraged. Helmig _feels_ the urchin in the darkness beside him smile in return. 

“Not a lick of sense in that,” his companion agrees. 

In that instant, the door is thrown open, and the butcher’s wife puts one foot out. 

Glancing about fearfully, she throws large chunks of meat, mostly gristle and bone. Then she immediately shuts the door. 

Helmig can understand her caution - the second the meat hits the ground, there is a frenzy. _It must look to her like demons rising from the shadows,_ he muses as he dives for the bones with the least gristle. 

After a brief tug-of-war, Helmig splits the hunk of meat he has grabbed, and the grizzled drunkard accepts his half with a grunt and slinks back. Helmig turns his head – and sees someone right beside him. 

Helmig raises his hand to offer a bite of his too-lean meat, but the urchin shakes his head. 

“I don’t eat meat,” he offers as his only explanation. He speaks in the voice of his companion in the shadows. Helmig pauses to match the face to the voice, then comprehends the spoken words. He keeps his mouth shut, but openly gapes at him. His companion smiles. 

“I was watching _you,_ ” he admits, and Helmig lowers his stringy sheep’s leg, not breaking eye contact.

“What is your name?” he asks, once his mouth isn’t full. 

“Fridann,” his companion replies promptly. Helmig stands and puts his non-meat-holding hand on Fridann’s shoulder. 

“Fridann. I want you to come with me,” he says, a bald-faced truth. Fridann blinks twice. 

“Where?” he asks, clearly bewildered. 

“With me. In the army,” Helmig stutters. Fridann raises one eyebrow and Helmig cannot hold his gaze. 

“They _do_...” he insists, “Feed you. At least once a day. It’s not very good, but...” He looks back up. “Can you ride a horse?” 

“Yes.” 

“Excellent!” Helmig grabs Fridann’s hand. “Oh, I’m Helmig, by the way. I only, ah. I only joined the troop yesterday.” 

“Are they all insufferable brutes?” Fridann asks blandly. Helmig half-laughs. 

“Most of them, yes, but it’ll be tolerable with you there.” He bites his lip. 

Fridann thinks for only a second, gazing at their clasped hands. “I will,” he announces and the younger urchins around him huff. 

“How long till _we_ get called for soldier duty?” one of them whines. 

“Yeeeah, I wanna eat at least one-sa-day too!” screeches another. 

Fridann smiles, more fondly than Helmig has ever smiled at his younger cohorts. “It will come, my lads. Survive until then. Be thrifty.” 

“Be swift,” they answer begrudgingly, and move off. With the soldiers around, unless they are of recruiting age, they are likely to be kicked or mugged, or worse. They make themselves scarce. 

“Thank you,” Helmig says again, squeezing Fridann’s hand, and finally releasing it. 

Fridann smiles at him with only half his mouth and says simply, “I will follow where you lead.” Then he adds, “If you lead me to food.” 

Winter has not been nearly so kind to this town’s hungry ones as Helmig’s. _Perhaps they have no witches here?_ “I can give you that, and more besides!” he promises, perhaps too hastily. 

Fridann sees that, and sighs. “Hard times often come to soldiers. If they do not feed us once a day, will you desert with me?” That is the true test of a friendship born of bare necessity - to brave the unknown together. Most fail. 

Helmig’s smile changes his entire face. “Of _course_ I will,” and he says it so softly that Fridann can’t help himself, and he _believes._

_Too often,_ Fridann thinks to himself as he follows Helmig from the alley. _Too often do I believe, and look where it’s gotten me._ But the angelic voice that speaks to him in his most hopeless moments reassures him, _This time, you **will** be cared for._ And this voice has never led him wrong. Rarely does it speak, but always with truth when it does.


	4. And if he protects it

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Helmig takes pains to ensure his new companion's first day in the army goes as smoothly as it can. With someone to be responsible for, he demonstrates the first flashes of the hero he will one day be.

The troops are still milling about in the town’s large square when they return. Helmig introduces Fridann as a rider to Liom, who smiles and gives ‘the new recruit’ a stick of jerky. “I promise it’s edible!” he says, beaming. Fridann eats it slowly and Helmig watches as his eyes slip shut in bliss. 

“The Commander won’t care we’ve got another recruit,” Liom tells them as they drag the reluctant horses away from water and rest, at least for a few hours. “We’ll introduce you to him when we make camp.” 

“ _I’ll_ introduce you to him,” Helmig cuts in and Liom looks at him with eyebrows high. “You recruited me, I recruited him. I’ll take... responsibility.” 

It’s a foreign word on Helmig’s lips, but _he_ wants to be the one loudly proclaiming the merits of this new find, this new...friend. He won’t ask Fridann yet, but he thinks they are friends now, or could be. (Fridann won’t tell him for weeks, but _he_ considered them to be friends the moment Helmig promised to desert with him if times got bad.)

Once he’s in the saddle, Liom offers his hand to Helmig, as he does every time, but Helmig pauses. There is definitely not room for three atop that horse, so he glances at Fridann and says, “I think I’ll walk, today.” It isn’t hard to keep up with the slow-moving horses, and it might even help him keep down his hard-earned, gristly lunch. 

Liom pulls his hand back, addresses Fridann. “You’ll be walking too, I suppose?” 

Fridann glances at Helmig and replies, “For now.” Helmig doesn’t know Fridann is planning on acquiring his own horse for himself and his patron. 

“Hmff!” Liom comments, a sound of surprise, not dismissal. “Thick as thieves, you’ll be, soon. If not _already._ ” Neither of them understands the leer in his voice, so Liom shakes his head and declares them simple children.

~*~

So they walk. They stick close to Liom, as he is the only member of the company likely to pay enough attention to their persons to avoid walking his horse straight into them. The three talk, exchanging horror stories of cold winters and dry summers. Helmig’s story of once being woken by a bucket of half-frozen fish wins the informal competition, but he insists the cow-bell is worse. 

When they stop for camp, just outside of the city they will breakfast in, Helmig hurries Fridann to the Commander’s tent. Short and unremarkable as he is, he stands his ground against the bluster-filled, apathetic Commander, insisting that, with just a little more food, Fridann will make an excellent horse-master, and will one day be as fearsome to their enemies as the Commander himself. The Commander is a master reader of posture, of the body’s positioning, and he can read, in this whelp, a dedication to this matted-haired urchin he has not seen in years. 

He supposes they will train each other, and one day be a team unrivaled in battle. If either one ever builds up enough muscle to lift a claymore.

So the Commander deems it so. He warns Helmig, though, to ensure this new recruit is fed well - “He’s even skinnier than _you,_ ” he mutters, “But horsemen that don’t ask for more than a meal a day are few and far between. So I’ll let you in.” He huffs and turns back to his charts. 

Fridann’s face is a different color and he is anxious to leave, but Helmig holds his ground. With feet planted and head held high, he proclaims, “Commander?” 

The Commander grunts. 

“Now that I have...Fridann... to mentor, I will need a two-man tent.” 

One of Commander’s eyebrows pops up and Helmig is surprised there is no accompanying _crack_ as his expression changes for the first time in days. 

“You don’t have one yet?” 

“No, I--” 

“Luk! Tuk! Find him a tent,” Commander mutters after shouting their names, and turns back to his strategic maps. What he’s reading here doesn’t make sense…

~*~

Helmig gets one good glance at the maps as the four of them hustle away. At the back of a supply wagon, Fridann is thrown a tent, and a bedroll, and Helmig is thrown a bedroll too, and though he has one already, Helmig hoards it, for the nights are still cold. 

Liom waves at them when they enter the sleeping-grounds section of the camp, but Helmig shakes his head and presses his shoulder against Fridann’s, who raises an eyebrow at him. Liom scoffs and waves them off, shouting, “More for me, then!” as he turns and curls himself into his bedroll in one single motion. Helmig is impressed. 

Fridann points to an open spot of ground, and the two of them hustle to claim it. 

After much trial and error on both their parts, they manage to set up the tent so that it does not fall if brushed against. The bedrolls are much easier to figure out. Helmig takes out his second one with a mischievous grin and Fridann’s eyes go comically wide. “I had this one from before! They gave me an extra just now, and I’m not giving it up!” 

Fridann shrugs, rolls his eyes, and settles on top of his bedroll as if meaning to sleep just like that.

“Fridann...you _can_ cover yourself with it,” Helmig tells him haltingly. 

“Eh?” 

Helmig demonstrates. 

“Ohhhh...” 

Fridann copies him. 

Once he is settled, Helmig throws his extra bedroll over both of them as a blanket, and Fridann’s eyes light up, as though he hadn’t expected Helmig to share. 

“I told you,” Helmig murmurs, curling himself up for sleep as the sky darkens to black around them, “I’d get you food, and more besides.” 

Fridann is smiling to the darkness as he falls asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this one doesn't have much happen in it, but I'm trying to keep them all roughly the same length. Not sure I'm succeeding?


	5. Against the storms and the stonings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Their first real assignment as corpsmen should by all rights have defeated both of them, but they are stronger together than the simple sum of their parts.

Fridann is not woken by the cowbell that clangs inches from his ear in the pre-dawn. He is woken by Helmig jumping nearly a foot off the ground, while horizontal, because he heard the cowbell in the distance. 

So when the bell-ringer nears their tent, they are both already rolling up the blankets and seriously discussing how best to dismantle the tent without ripping it. The bell-ringer rolls his eyes at their ignorance, and pauses to grunt a few tips at them. 

Hurriedly following them, Fridann and Helmig are both nearly first in line for breakfast. 

The brown slop is no better for having gotten there earlier. It is warmer, though, and much easier on the stomach when not riding. 

Fridann and Helmig shoulder their bedrolls, which contain only the clothes they are not currently wearing, and follow the straggling line of men towards the town, where richer men will break their fasts in much more pleasant fashion.

~*~

It is less than half an hour to the town, and the Commander rides ahead. It is too small a hamlet to merit a recruitment speech, but the Commander is beginning to feel his reconnaissance groups are utterly hopeless. 

He returns from the town before any of the foot-soldiers arrive, and he urges his horse to cut off Fridann and Helmig where they walk. Brought up short by an eight-foot-tall beast, they resist the urge to make themselves scarce. Running from one’s Commander is probably frowned upon in the army, Helmig thinks.

“You two! New recruits!” There can be no doubt he is speaking to them – his horse is blocking their path. “The town up ahead has need of soldiers to keep the peace. You two will be stationed there until you receive further instructions. Keep the peasants in line!” 

With that, he turns his horse abruptly, and its tail brushes Helmig’s face in a manner that would probably be insulting to someone who had never been awoken by a bucket of half-frozen fish. The Commander rides to the front of the army, and diverts them from the town. He holds his position at the junction and roars at Liom as he passes. White-faced, Helmig’s mentor pulls aside and scans the line of soldiers frantically. When Fridann and Helmig near him, he waves them over and reveals that the Commander volunteered him too, to go into town and ‘keep the peace.’ 

~*~

That ominous phrase becomes much more meaningful to the two street urchins when they pass the first two houses of the town and immediately have to dodge projectiles.  
Liom is not so lucky, atop his horse, and he barely manages to keep control of it as he wheels and cowers behind a building. 

There is noise and shouting and fire and rocks and none of the three have the armor or the training to survive walking into the middle of it.

Thinking fast, Fridann strips off his newer clothes and slinks behind a few houses toward a cluster of shadows shaped like people. Helmig hurries to follow, hissing to Liom to stay with the horse and the clothes in case they need to escape. 

“She won’t hold three of us!” he hisses back. 

“I know,” Helmig hisses in response. “She won’t have to.” 

Liom thins his lips unhappily and hisses back, more loudly, “You are my responsibility, soldier! Don’t you die on me, hear?” 

Helmig smiles at him, his teeth white against his dirt-smeared face. “And miss all the free jerky?” And then Fridann and he are both gone. 

Hissing through his teeth, Liom calms his horse to a stand-still, slides off and coaxes her to lie down, to nap safely and stay out of sight. He curls up against her flank as she reaches out her neck to graze on nearby grass, closes his eyes, and begs the gods he will open them again. 

~*~

Helmig and Fridann approach the shadowed people with hands raised, whisper-shouting, “We are friends!” and they are not attacked, which is a good start, Helmig thinks.  
The combatants are dirtier than they are, grim-faced and nearly emaciated. Helmig wonders how they are able to throw rocks at passersby at all.

“Who are you fighting?” Fridann asks calmly, laying his hand on the throwing arm of one young man.

“You must be _foreign,_ ” the youth replies, spitting the word. “This fight’s been going on for a week! It’s Lord Teller. The first spring crops are in, the small ones, and he’s demanding so much in taxes-in-kind that we won’t be able to feed any of our people! These men here are only the ones able to fight! There are probably 5 times as many that couldn’t – women, children, our elders. And we will all starve if we have to pay these taxes! So we fight. Because if we win, everyone might live.” Agitated all over again, the youth throws his rock, but it hits no target. He stares fixedly at the ground. “For the sake of our families, we are _all_ willing to die.

“I don’t think that will be necessary,” Fridann replies smoothly, turning to Helmig. 

“Helmig, will you go and tell the Lord you wish to negotiate on behalf of the peace-loving citizens that were driven to violence against their will and wish for a treaty?” 

Helmig just stares at him. 

“The citizens here will not harm a peace-keeper, correct?” Fridann glances towards the still-shadowed others, who nod with furrowed brows. None of them believe in this plan. 

Helmig can’t say he really does, either. 

But Fridann’s eyes widen meaningfully and Helmig blows out a breath, with no idea whether or how he will survive to see his friend again. 

Lips thinned, he grabs Fridann by the back of the neck and presses their noses and foreheads together.

“Please wait up for me,” he pleads, his eyes closed against the fear.

“Just talk to them,” Fridann urges. “Remember how you got me to join the army with you?” Helmig opens his eyes and pulls back. 

“I promised you food,” he answers confusedly. “What’s that got to do with--”

“I doubt the lord wishes to go hungry, either.”

With the very smallest eddies of a plan beginning to swirl in his head, Helmig nods then, and walks away. 

Fridann watches with the villagers in the shadows as Helmig wipes his face off on his shirtsleeve, to be more easily identified as a stranger to the town, and walks slowly, arms waving, towards the other side of the street, where the lord’s guards are throwing rocks and spears of their own. 

No words make it past the roar of the fires, but no rocks hit him, and he disappears behind the guards’ ranks. The villagers watch silently as a small number of guards breaks off from the group and escorts Helmig into the castle. The rest remain at the gates, warily. 

~*~

Fridann sighs, realizes he will have to do this part and beckons the young man he had first spoken to. “Do you want to wait out here, or do what that man did, and get the guards to escort you into the castle?” 

The youth’s eyes light up, but a few within hearing distance shy away. 

Fridann repeats himself more loudly, and a few volunteers cluster around him, willingly passing their weapons to their comrades. 

They follow Fridann, with his foreigner’s face, all walking slowly towards the castle with their hands in the air. 

Once within shouting distance, the captain of the guards shouts, “Stop! Villagers! Come no further!”

“I am not a villager!” Fridann shouts back, raising his chin. “I am a soldier of the Royal Army, sent by my commander, along with that man you just let through, to settle this dispute! The King does not want his lord’s lands in conflict with themselves! An invasion is coming from the East!” Fridann belatedly realizes that they are _in_ the East of the country, and that information was probably classified. He immediately resolves to lie less specifically, in the future. “The King has sent us to fortify the borders. Now, more than ever, the kingdom needs you to be strong! Let me arbitrate, as I was sent to do!” The villagers behind him roar in general agreement, and Fridann prays none of them to do more than that. 

The captain lowers his spear and blinks while he processes all of that. Then he raises it again. “We let the other soldier through. Why should we let you also?” The villagers begin to jeer, and Fridann raises a hand to silence them. 

“My…fellow soldier is not so good with words. He will need my help. That is why the army sent both of us. Escort me and these villagers into the castle – we are unarmed, what harm can we do you?” Fridann immediately turns around and shouts, “You must cooperate! Do not harm any of the guards or you shall be forcibly evicted from the castle! Cooperate, and you may witness two of the Royal Army’s soldiers better your fate for the next ten generations! You may follow me, if you remain quiet!” 

He immediately regrets his angry, commanding tone and stands frozen, sure the villagers are about to shove him aside and storm the gates. 

But they do not. 

The eldest of the fighters thumps one fist against his chest, and sinks to one knee, silently, and the rest follow his example. 

Fridann breathes very deeply, very slowly, to ward off the fainting spell that nearly gripped him at their show of unquestioning obedience. He lets them kneel for a few seconds more, partly to demonstrate their docility to the guards, and commands them to rise. 

He turns to face the captain, makes his face stern, and raises his chin. The captain immediately motions for the iron doors to be opened. Fridann and the villagers pass unobstructed, and are escorted to the castle with armed guards on either side.


	6. Through the gilded halls of privilege

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first test for the people's champion is to negotiate tax relief with the stubborn Lord Teller, but he can recognize change in the wind.

Helmig and Lord Teller’s butler pass expensive portraits of the lord’s ancestors hanging above delicate vases on exquisitely-crafted side tables as they walk, one behind the other, through the high-ceilinged halls, and the only thing Helmig can think of is how impossibly loud his boots sound against the cobble-stone floor. The butler must have practice walking silently, he pouts, refusing to make eye contact with any of the imposing portraits. 

All too quickly, his journey through another world is over, and the danger looms before him, clear and immediate, in the form of a tall wooden door. 

“The Lord Deidrick Teller, sir,” the butler informs him, quite unnecessarily, as Helmig is certain they would have stopped walking for no one less in status than the King himself. The butler knocks smartly three times, receives a curt summons, pushes the door open and Helmig, again, attempts to keep his knees from shaking. 

He strides forward as the butler announces him as “Foot-soldier Helmig, of the Royal Army, here to see you, sir.” 

“No, no,” he immediately deflects, smiling politely at the shrunken-looking lord sitting in the high-backed chair. Teller is clearly in no position to be war-lord of the region, and Helmig’s fears sluice quickly away. “I have been sent as a mediator, sir, an ambassador, if you will.” He thinks very quickly as he pretends to be impressed by the multitude of portraits also present in this room, pretends to think they are in good taste. 

“The Commander of my regiment,” he begins slowly, mulling quickly over how best to lie, “has heard from his scouts that a threat to the kingdom may soon arise from the East. This is no time for the lords of the region to be at war with their own people! Your guards and your villagers will be our first line of defense, should such a threat appear. So, the King has sent me to settle this dispute, favorably, on all sides, to ensure your people remain healthy, and the Capitol also gets its bread.” 

He drops his chin and stares intently at the lord, dropping the half-made-up excuse for his arrival. “I couldn't help but notice the impoverished state of the villagers outside, sir. They were kind enough to escort me to the gates, and on the way, we had a very productive discussion about _taxes._ ” 

The lord’s face goes, if possible, even paler, and Helmig tries not to let his alarm show on his face. He has never _seen_ a human turn _that_ cloth-white. 

He begins spluttering and Helmig sees the butler close his eyes in consternation. 

Extrapolating swiftly, Helmig deduces that the lord has made a tactical error, and the butler knows it. 

Helmig cuts him off – the man was barely speaking intelligibly, anyway – and chides gently, “Even your butler knows it.” 

The man opens his eyes wide, too wide, fearful for his job now, and Helmig presses his advantage as he sees the lord’s gaze flick away from him, “Those taxes are too high. Let me explain,” and he draws on a very limited amount of knowledge regarding agricultural production, and begins, “Your villages are very productive farmers, are they not? They can produce more food than they can eat in one year, even if they share with all their neighbors, all the other villagers, correct?” The lord nods, his loose chin trembling. “Some of that extra should, by rights, go to the King, to the Capitol, and he sends buyers out here to bring it back, yes?” 

The lord shakes his head, just as nervously and Helmig’s stomach sours. “Then what does he do?” he continues despite the taste in his mouth. 

“It… it is more complicated than that. Sometimes one bale of wheat could be sold a dozen times before it reaches the King.” 

“But the King does eat your food?” Helmig presses, praying he is correct in this assumption. “He needs your farmers’ produce?” 

The lord nods tremulously, and Helmig visibly relaxes. 

“I see. And so do you.” The lord looks at him, sagging face pulled at the eyebrows like a begging dog’s. Helmig fights the urge to laugh. 

“ _You_ need their food. You must eat _some_ of it, to live.”

“Well, yes, of course, but, the taxes--”

“Do they go to the King?”

“What?” Helmig is quickly tiring of this man’s simple-minded confusion.

“Does the extra food that you are taking from the farmers go to the King?” The lord does not answer, and Helmig is hit with the answer. “Or does it go to you?” 

He circles the chairs placed before the desk, ignoring the sharp, fearful breath from the butler, and places both hands on the desk’s surface, making the inkwells rattle. “Has the King increased your requirements lately or have you simply gotten greedy?” 

He realizes he sounds nothing like a royally-appointed negotiator, so he stands straighter, pulling on the edge of his truly ratty tunic as he does so. 

“Do you not understand that the farmers must eat their own food as well, to live? You have lived perfectly well, for _years,_ with less than you are demanding now – some of these portraits are extremely old! You could have a smidge less income and be not so much the worse for it! But the villagers I walked with today were dying of hunger – and you need them alive, Lord Teller. You need them alive, because if too many of them die, as many were willing to, just this morning, to keep a smidgen more of the food they had grown themselves, then you will have less food yourself. Think about it,” he urges, roughing out the scenario in his head. “If half of your entire town dies, who will work the fields? One man can only plant and care for and harvest so much grain in a year! Production will drop, if too many people die. You want them to live. You need them to live, and above that, you need them to be healthy. Now, the only reason they have not slain you where you slept decades ago is because they have been _safe_ beneath your rule. Safe to live their own lives, on their farms, in their shops, with one constant lord instead of many, all at war with each other, destroying their fields and homes! The only reason they need you is for that, for that _safety_. If you do not give them that, they will not feed you.” Helmig takes a deep breath and backs away from the desk. 

“The answer to this problem is very simple,” he offers, voice light and glib again. “You will allow the farmers to keep a certain amount of their crop each year – _not_ a percentage, a raw weighted amount – and they will give you their surplus, _if_ you keep them safe. Safe from invaders, yes, but safe from hunger, too. If a terrible winter comes, you must treat _that_ as an invader, and procure extra wood for the stoves, at your own expense, to keep your serfs from dying. _They will not feed you if you constantly let them die,_ ” he emphasizes, turning his head as the butler cracks open the door to the hallway. Helmig watches as he pulls it sharply open and several villagers and guards stride in, led by, of all people, Fridann. 

Helmig gasps his name desperately, and Fridann runs to him, grabs his shoulder in a comrade’s greeting, and turns to the somewhat-deflated-looking lord. 

“Oh? Why did you start without me?” The lord opens his mouth to answer, but shuts it as Fridann turns back to Helmig with a wide smile. Helmig glances down at his mouth, at the largest smile Fridann has ever shown him, and smiles sheepishly.

“I kind of, finished, without you, too.” Fridann’s eyes go wide around the question he’s about to ask. “I think he’s willing to scale back the taxes, since he doesn’t want the villagers to die on him. After all, that would be bad for business, am I right?” 

“Yes, yes, I will… Yes,” the defeated lord acquiesces, cowardly before the massed citizens. 

Fridann and Helmig smile brilliantly at each other as the villagers and even the guards raise their fists and roar in generalized approval, the latter happy their jobs will go back to being easy and not life-threatening, like in the past week.

~*~


	7. It will return boons to him tenfold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The treaty is drawn up and celebrations ring out from all sides. Lord Teller takes the long view and begins to formulate a plan.

Admitting to the villagers and Lord Teller that he himself doesn’t know all that much about farming, Helmig agrees to act in an advisory capacity as the two sides, Teller aided by a veritable chorus line of accountants, pick over the details of the current, unacceptable tax plan. 

Fridann proves to be much gentler in his persuasion of the villagers, and Helmig jokes that he should make Fridann do the negotiating next time. 

“Oh? Why not Liom?” Fridann asks guilelessly, at which Helmig nearly smacks his own forehead. 

“Liom! I’d completely forgotten about him!” Helmig nearly jumps from the table to go get him himself when Fridann shouts over him for a guard.

“There is a fellow soldier of ours, with a large, white horse, near the western edge of town. His name is Liom. Could you bring him here, please?” 

“Yes, my lord, er, yes, sir!” the guard snaps off a salute, hampered slightly by his awkward rephrasing, and hurries from the room. Fridann and Helmig trade impressed glances. 

Lord Teller takes in all this and begins to hatch a plan.

~*~

The guard is successful in retrieving Liom, who blusters into the room, all grass-stains and wild eyes, the guards and villagers taken aback when their two saviors rise to embrace him.

Liom isn’t much more persuasive than Helmig, but he does know a great deal more about the amount of food necessary to sustain a body for a season, knows how age and height and build, and also the season in question, affect this number. 

“For instance,” he informs the lord, “during the winter season, the farmers have nothing to farm, have they? So they don’t need as much food, as they will be mostly sitting around inside near the fire. People do a lot more sleeping in the winter, too, and fruits and leaves are rare. I would suggest the winter be a time of nuts, ground-roots, and smoked meat.” 

The farmers agree heartily, and with Liom’s help, they secure foraging rights on the lord’s lands within a certain distance of their own dwellings, excluding the castle grounds, of course. Teller watches the older soldier converse animatedly with the farmers, some of whom have brought elders and wives up from their houses to better arm themselves with information, and announces his newly-hatched plan.

“Attention!” he calls out across the now-packed negotiation room. 

“Soldiers,” he clarifies, holding out a hand to indicated Liom, Helmig, and Fridann. 

“I have an acquaintance, a lord of lands to the south of here. In his letters, he tells me he fears an event much like this one. I wish to prevent that bloodshed. I wish to write to him, and tell him to expect you three within the week, to negotiate with his people, the way you have with mine. Will you accept?”

Fridann is the first to recover, and turns to the eldest fighter and his wife, who have been fielding all the other villagers’ complaints. 

“Will you be able to continue negotiating in our absence?” 

The woman smiles at him. “Of course, dear. All we needed was the lord to listen to us, and you’ve given us that chance.” 

Her husband chimes in, “I say, do go on. Bring peace to the villages surrounding us. None of us have any wish to fight.” 

“And if they do, you’re all trained soldier-boys, aren’t you? You can win their hearts by fist if not by words!” a third villager chimes in, shaking his fist and grinning lopsidedly.

“I’d really rather _not_ fight,” Helmig mutters under his breath, and Fridann elbows him.

“That’s what Liom has the horse for,” Fridann reminds him. Helmig imagines Liom shouting at a crowd, their heads level with his knees, and smiles. 

He asks Fridann and Liom permission with one glance, and, once given it, replies lustily, “Yes, Lord Teller, we will accept. We will appoint the Herschwitz family as arbiters in our stead--” the eldest fighter and his wife look at him wide-eyed, but nod their acceptance. “And we would ask for a meal from your table, Lord, as we have had nothing to eat since breaking our morning fast.” The villagers murmur sympathetically, but the lord hangs his head.

“Since the fighting began, my servants and I have been eating from our earth-cellars. The cooks have been idle. My estate cannot offer you the feast your services deserve--”

Fridann raises a hand to interrupt him. “Do you have food enough to keep three men from starving for a day?” Bewildered, the lord answers yes.

“Then that will be sufficient for our needs,” Fridann declares, gaining nods from his two companions. Blustering, but aware of the limits this past week has placed on his once-substantial food cellar, Lord Teller agrees.

When presented with three bundles from the lord’s cellar, the three soldiers immediately sit down and reverently unwrap each one, swallowing repeatedly against the saliva pooling in their mouths. 

“This is absolutely….sufficient,” Liom declares, shell-shocked, as the lord watches with anxiously-clasped hands. Fridann and Helmig are quick to nod their agreement. Of course, what the lord thinks is ‘sufficient’ to prevent starving in a man for one day will tide over each of them for the entire four-day ride to the south. This is the most food any of them have been given permission to eat, in one go, in all their lives. 

One of the fighters correctly interprets their wide-eyed rapture and tugs on Fridann’s sleeve, whispering, “Will you come back to my home and celebrate with all of us? Our neighbors will bring mead and hard bread and you can save this meal for the road ahead.” The three of them need to confer only with raised eyebrows before they agree as one. 

Helmig stands, addressing the lord, explains the villager’s offer, and their acceptance, to which the lord simply nods, glad his meager gift of food is acceptable his saviors. Since Helmig spoke to him, he has been pondering how very close he came to dying, by violence or starvation, and he is adamant he will not turn his back on this second chance.

~*~

The party is excellent; the house is warm, the company is rowdy, the bread is filling, and the drink is strong. 

No one in attendance breaks their fast before noon the next day.


	8. And on the road to glory

With a rough map plotted out by one of Lord Teller’s guards the night before, the three soldiers make their way to the other end of town, after a full day of sleeping off the bread and mead, in the dark of the early morning. 

Lord Teller sent his reply by post-horse, so it gets there a full day before the three soldiers do, which, miraculously, has a calming effect on the tensions of the town.

The streets are deserted when they get close enough, not bustling with life, but not on fire or full of flying rocks, either. 

Liom, alone atop his horse, rides to the nearest house and simply announces their presence through a window. 

A woman with a rag thrown over her shoulder opens the door, and when she sees the caller is a man riding a white horse in army clothes, she calls back over her shoulder for her husband. 

She holds his hand tight when he limps to the door, his foot clearly mangled, but stubbornly using no crutch. 

Before he can speak, Helmig asks brusquely, “Are you willing to negotiate with the lord on behalf of all the villagers and farmers he commands?” The man goes slightly pale and he shakes his head. 

He directs them to walk into town, go left, then start shouting for Billy, the butcher’s son. 

“His older brother began the fightin’, you see, but…they got him. Young Billy took over then. Been real dedicated to the cause, he has.” The man sniffles once, then nods repeatedly. “He’ll do the negotiatin’, and he’ll do the dyin’ if there’s no negotiatin’ ta be done.”

Fridann puts one hand on the man’s shoulder, and after a second, puts his other hand on his wife’s shoulder, trying to put them both at ease. 

“We’ll keep him safe. We’ll get this mess sorted out, I promise. No one else will have to die. No one else.” The woman’s tears don’t impede her imploring stare, but the man cannot look Fridann in the eyes as his tears well up.

“I promise,” Helmig adds from where he stands behind Fridann. “We’ll let the whole town know as soon as we get concessions. How about you wait in the center of town? Bring everybody there?” He smiles wanly. “Young Billy might need reinforcements.” 

The husband nods, more slowly. “Aye, that he might.”

~*~

As they slowly make their way to the city center, calling people from their homes as they go, the guards find them. They had not heard about Lord Teller, but the growing masses of quiet civilians make them nervous – fighting could break out at any moment – so they grudgingly lead the three to the castle up the hill.

At the gates, the captain of the guard makes them stand around and wait while he personally asks the Lord Gull about this letter, his tone making it clear he does not believe these strangers’ story, but is willing to indulge their fancy because it might amuse him. 

Helmig and Liom bristle at the treatment, unnerving the horse, which steps side to side and tosses its head, snorting. The guards on their side of the fence take a step back. 

_They must be on a hair trigger,_ Helmig thinks. _Good. They should be. ___

__Fridann is quick to pet her nose and speak soothing nothings, glancing meaningfully, but swiftly, at the restless men as well._ _

__Within the hour, the captain returns, and magnanimously allows the guards to open the gates for the soldiers. Helmig resists the urge to stick out his tongue at the captain only because Fridann walks between them. Helmig thinks he may have done so on purpose._ _

__Once the guards have been suitably threatened to take care of the horse and the soldier’s inanimate effects, they walk, much less stiffly, through the much larger, but much less heavily-decorated castle. Helmig hopes this means Lord Gull will be less blustery._ _

__It turns out he is, but only by a little bit. Fridann, being the best at math out of the three, has to explain to the lord about percentages and base amounts, using 10 and 5 fingers to demonstrate._ _

__Lord Gull also had his serfs pay a percentage of their produce to his estate each year, of which he sent a roughly equal percentage to the King. This year, one of their main crops had been struck by plague, not so severe as to cause starvation, but about a third of the whole yield was inedible. Lord Gull was still demanding ten percent of their output, however, and the serfs were tense, especially the ones with young children and babes. Several had lied about their yield to keep more grain for themselves, and Gull had been punishing this behavior._ _

__Once they disabuse the lord of the notion that ten percent is not too high a price for anyone to pay, no matter how poor, Fridann yields to Liom, who explains, using the numbers from Teller’s farmers, how much an individual must eat, per season, to survive, factoring in height and age and so forth._ _

__Gull reveals begrudgingly that the majority of those families cheating on the tithe had small children or expectant mothers. Liom replies that young children need an alarming amount of food, but this requirement drops substantially as it grows. He asks Young Billy to send for a midwife or young mother of the town who would know the exact figures._ _

__Lord Gull agrees easily to a lowering of the required percentage during years where the crops in question have been damaged in some way._ _

__While attempting to determine the expected yield per acreage, and how it has changed over the years, the four of them quickly discover a serious lack of good accounting in crop yields, and Fridann urges Gull to send for some of Teller’s experts right away._ _

__Young Billy returns with a young mother, but she is frail from lack of food, and distraught over the death (by starvation) of her most recent babe and does not give very good testimony. Under Fridann’s gentle coaxing, though, she outlines the amount of food per day a baby needs, and how that amount changes as it grows, which Liom, with his skill at numbers, extrapolates into a monthly figure covering the whole first year of growth._ _

__There is still more to do, of course, but it is at this stage in their negotiations that someone’s stomach growls very loudly. Everyone pauses to stare in the general direction of Liom, who grins sheepishly. “Does that mean it’s time for supper?” he asks the room at large, to which most everyone laughs. Helmig, Fridann and the lord simply relax a little bit._ _

__The lord turns to Helmig, who hasn’t spoken much, this time. “Would your people like a meal now? We can offer you a feast, as befitting visitors of you stature.”  
Helmig considers it, praying he can decline. “Actually, sir, if would be acceptable…” _ _

__Fridann, seeing a great opportunity, jumps in while Helmig is delaying. “Could we invite all the villagers to this feast? We are so few to honor with so much food, and it would be an excellently-timed gesture of goodwill. You could make a speech about how well the negotiations are going, and the tensions in your village will drop dramatically. Obviously, you would make clear this celebration is a rare event, which hopefully would draw even more villagers to this feast, for the chance of seeing the inside of the castle, just once in their lives.”_ _

__“Precisely,” Liom adds. “We heard from your lordship just an hour ago that Lord Jevin, to the west of here, would benefit greatly from our services.”_ _

__“I cannot lose you so soon in this negotiation process!” Lord Gull protests, but Helmig can see in his face that he is considering it._ _

__“Oh, good sir, I respectfully disagree!” Fridann interjects. “With Young Billy here to take our place, and all the villagers behind him to ensure you agree to at least a modicum of their terms, I believe negotiations can proceed quite nicely! We heard just last week from the head negotiator with Lord Teller that the information and the will has always been among the citizens – they merely needed a silent room to speak in where they would be heard! And the citizens here are even more determined, I do believe. So what have you to fear? You have your guards, all of them well-armed and well-trained, all the servants of this castle – much larger than Lord Teller’s, if I do say so myself…”_ _

__Helmig looks on in complete astonishment as Fridann layers on the praise and the comforting words, all meant to help the three of them make their escape as quickly as possible. Liom reaches over and flicks the bottom of his chin to make him pick it up off the floor._ _

__Fridann makes a throw-away comment about the possibility of the three of them reaching the Capitol by summer’s height, to have an audience with the King himself. It is utterly false, as far as Helmig knows, but a devious spark lights up Gull’s eyes when he hears that. Helmig feels his stomach twist – but in the next moment, it simply growls as Liom’s had, begging the room at large for food, and the propitious moment is forgotten as the assembled personages laugh again, and move more decisively to begin the feast in the three guests’ honor – which Fridann then manages to finagle them _out_ of attending._ _

~*~

__They sleep in their own tents that night, as they have been for the past week of riding to this town, and Helmig comments on the movements of the stars. Fridann folds an arm behind his head, munching on a slice of deliciously moist bread the castle’s cooks had insisted they take, and does not speak._ _

__Helmig reaches over and nabs half of it out of Fridann’s hand._ _

__Liom makes a comment, again, about being invisible, and Fridann throws a slice in his general direction, which he manages to catch, and subsequently eats. In the silence, they watch the stars move, slowly, so slowly, and ponder the vastness of the Earth._ _

__~*~_ _


	9. Spurred on by allies' plots

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lord Jevin is the most conciliatory lord the peace-makers have encountered on their journey so far, but he is also the most willing to play puppet-master with the lives of soldiers he barely knows. Helmig waxes poetic about freedom that night while Fridann treats him to one of his semi-magical back massages.

The next lord is far more welcoming, sending a guard to meet them at the village’s edge. Lord Jevin takes to negotiating so easily, Helmig wonders why he needed their presence at all.

“It was an excuse, you see,” he tells Helmig conspiratorially as they eat a small midday meal in the lord’s study. “Would have appeared too weak to the other lords had I simply caved to my villagers’ demands without a _reason_. Now I can say I feared their rebellion, as Teller experienced! Not that there was any threat of that, mind you.” 

The soldier-diplomats have to agree. The negotiations, which do not include a member of the village, as the lord has not done anything so fearsome as to warrant violence, are completed in that very same day. 

At its conclusion, Jevin offers them a list of all the lords he knows of that he thinks are really too tight-fisted, and could use some persuasion to see the path of reason. This list will keep them busy for months, and Helmig says so. Jevin smiles with half his mouth and draws them a map of the entire country, dotting and labeling his estate, Gull’s, Tevin’s, and each of the lords he has listed for them. He does have to occasionally consult other maps, and warns them that this is no map to be used for directions, but it gets the job done. 

He then marks the Capitol in red ink, and draws a circle, no, a spiral, out from its center, catching on a few of the lords he has listed, spiraling out all the way to…

“Here?” Liom asks as Jevin’s pen pauses over his own estate-dot, and lifts away. “Why does it end here?”

Jevin shakes his head. “It starts here. I’m not sure if Gull told you, but he was very impressed with your political handling of a potentially violent situation. Oh, he may have seemed aloof and uncaring, but that’s because he’s so confident in his guardsmen, you see – but he knows the rest of us aren’t. He spoke, in his letter to me that preceded you here, of your abilities, and of the failings of the King, in the same _paragraph._ ” When it becomes clear the three of them do not know the meaning of the word ‘paragraph,’ he rephrases. “Section. Area? He spoke of them practically in the same _sentence._ ” The three then give identical _Ohhhh_ ’s of understanding, making Jevin smile.

“The failings of the king… my skills… he wants us to negotiate with the King? National policy? Oh, I know nothing about that--”

“Oh, not quite negotiate, no. I don’t think that was his intent.” Jevin is studying Helmig’s face now, studying it so very closely. “I believe he was thinking more along the lines of… _replacement._ ”

“Are you mad?” Helmig hisses, speaking more quietly as thought the current King might somehow overhear. “I can’t just…waltz in and take the throne! Have you any idea of the armies he’s got? And if I did throw him out, what then? Isn’t the throne passed on by blood or something like that?”

“Do you know who your parents are, Helmig?”

“I…” He hangs his head, agitation deflating. “No, I don’t. I was born a… a street urchin.”

“There’s no shame in that, boy – look how far you’ve come!” 

Helmig smiles very faintly. 

“Now, if you don’t know, if there are no records, nothing to prove you are anyone in particular… why couldn’t you be the king’s son? Is it so impossible? That the King loved a servant woman, found out she was with child, and forced her to flee to the North, where she birthed you, left you, and fled? Never to know your true birthright?” 

Helmig is shaking his head, hands coming up to clutch his temples as his head starts to pound—but Fridann grabs his arm, pulls it down, and _glares_ at him, for some strange reason. 

“He _knows_ he is lying,” Fridann barks at him cuttingly. “And _you_ must know it too, or you’ll get lost in this lie. I won’t have you lost inside yourself, not again.”

“Again?” Helmig mouths.

“You don’t remember the first time,” Fridann says simply, turning to look straight ahead at Jevin. 

“You are absolutely going to have to tell me about that first time,” Helmig says, tone half-hysterical.

“Not _now_!” Fridann hisses.

“No, not _now_!” Helmig barks back. “Later, though.”

“Fine. Later.”

Jevin looks between the two of them, eyebrows high. “Now, if you two are done with your lover’s spat…” to which the pair of them snort dismissively and Liom chokes while breathing, “Are you ready to talk strategy?”

Helmig coughs and gestures to the map. “That looks simple enough. Will we bring the lords with us or simply letters stating their goodwill?”  
“Letters will do for now,” Jevin accedes, dipping quill in ink again to label each of the dots. “When you finish with Lord Mial, here,” he taps the last dot before the castle, only two days of hard riding away from it, “You may want to have him send for the other lords, by horse. They may send their guards, their private armies, or come themselves. The battalions will be necessary for the show of force, obviously…”

They end up talking strategy for several hours. 

Liom keeps copious, but largely illegible notes on a scrap of paper Jevin hands to him, ending up with several sheets that Helmig insists they can’t carry, if they’re going to be also collecting a dozen letters on top of this large map. 

“Just the names, in order, should be enough. And a reminder to ask Mial to send horses.” Obligingly, Liom takes the first piece of paper from Jevin’s desk, and scribbles something truly illegible beside Mial’s name. 

Helmig rolls his eyes. Long days without rest are not his forte. Urchin children slept frequently, if fitfully, as the lack of it could be more deadly than the lack of food. 

“Good enough.” 

Jevin takes pity on them and calls the butler in to bring another few trays of lunch fare, as he is sure his guests would not desire a full supper and its fanfare.

“Why have you done all this?” Fridann asks, putting down a bowl of soup he has just finished guzzling down. “You are the most… humane of any lord we’ve spoken to. Why do you wish to make us pawns?”

Jevin folds his hands before his plate, and thinks. “You three represent an opportunity to improve the lives of every living soul in this nation. Why stop your improvements with just the lords? Additionally, if any one of them takes your advices wholeheartedly, they could become so powerful as to be candidates for the throne themselves. Simple takeovers by force are not unknown to history, have happened even within my father’s lifetime. I do not wish to see any more blood shed. Everyone can have a better life and no one need die! And would it be so bad, to be the one sitting on the throne? Helmig, even if you hate it, no, especially if you do, you will be a more compassionate king than this one. I would gladly swear my fealty to you.” And he holds out one hand to Helmig, who takes it hesitantly. 

Jevin raises Helmig’s hand to his lips and kisses his knuckles. Not the ritual gesture of fealty, more like a promise. Helmig swallows at the gravity of it. 

Jevin then shatters the moment by patting Helmig’s hand rather condescendingly, and releasing it. “Now, then, where would you all like to sleep tonight? Tomorrow, it’s on to Lord Corrion!”

~*~

Lord Jevin ensconces them in a guest room, one often cold and unused. There are four separate beds, and the three urchins-turned-soldiers look at them with something akin to horror. Helmig snatches a pillow, and tests the blankets for firmness. None pass, but he keeps the pillow. When the maids arrive to get a fire going, Liom asks if their tent and bedrolls could be brought in. Without even asking their master, they do so. 

Liom comments as the maids leave that perhaps the lords’ personal servants could form a whole fearsome battalion of their own, on the day they attack the King’s castle.  
Helmig groans and rolls over onto his stomach on the bedroll, words muffled entirely by the giant pillow obscuring his face. Fridann can guess what he has said, however. Without prompting, he straddles Helmig’s back and works his hands over the other’s neck and shoulders. 

“I’ll get you after,” he promises Liom before the man can make another saucy comment. 

He turns back to Helmig and says, not whispering at all, “We have some time before we will be expected at Mial’s.” Helmig’s shoulders tense and Fridann leans on the muscles in retaliation. 

“We don’t have to follow his plan to the letter, Helmig, I promise. He’s not the army, and no matter how many letters he sends to how many lords, we can proceed at our own pace. Take a day off somewhere, rest up. Not travel or negotiate every single day. No one will find us if we take unexpected roads. There are ways to maintain our freedoms, Helmig, I promise.”

“Hmmpf,” Helmig says, turning his head to the side. “You said that twice.” 

“I meant it both times.”

“Hmmpf. And why are you so worried about my freedom? I joined the army voluntarily, you know.”

“Yes, for the food!” Liom cuts in.

“Yes, for the food,” Helmig agrees. “But it was for more than that. I was stuck in that tiny village. All I’d ever known, my whole life. Where’s the freedom in staying in one place? In being seen the same way by everyone? Being hated? I mean, they hated me in the army, but, not in the same way. And not you, Liom. And I found you, Fridann, so it all turned out well, wouldn’t you say?” 

Feeling Helmig relax as he nears sleep, Fridann sits up, takes his hands off Helmig’s back. “You would call finding me and Liom freedom?”

“Yes… Yes, I would. It was _so_ freeing, to be a new person! To see new things. To be loved…” Helmig trails off as his mouth opens and his breathing evens out, as he falls asleep.

“Well,” Fridann says summarily as he stands up, watching Helmig for a moment before turning to Liom. “Looks like that massage did wonders for him. You want one now?” 

Liom smiles wanly, certain it won’t affect him as strongly as it did Helmig, as patience is much more Liom’s strong suit and his neck isn’t hurting him that much. 

“Sure,” he replies, lying down on his stomach, settling in for sleep. “Work your magic.” 

Fridann is about to retort that a neck massage is hardly magic, but reconsiders as he wonders if maybe it is. Then he puts his hands to Liom’s neck, and sends him off to sleep the same way he did Helmig. 

Liom, being more relaxed in general, actually goes to sleep faster than Helmig did, and Fridann intends to use this fact to his advantage for future conversations. Fridann stretches luxuriously against his own bedroll, positioned nearest to the fire, and curls up comfortably, soothed by the heat and the others’ steady breaths. Tomorrow would bring more trials, but then again, it always does.

~*~


	10. Waiting to be lifted by the tides of fate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After all this time on the road, polishing their negotiating routine, Helmig meets his greatest challenge yet in Lord Mial, whose domain lies closest to the Capitol, suffering all manner of frivolous indignities that not even Fridann's smooth-talking can soothe. The worst of which is the inevitable waiting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm aware the pacing gets a little janky here, skipping right to the end of their long road-trip to just before the storming of the Capitol. What can I say, I was running out of characterizations for the in-between lords.
> 
> I've been trying to make each Chapter Title a line that both describes the chapter's events and fits into an overall poem that describes the story. It's harder than it sounds, and it doesn't rhyme or anything. But an attempt was made!

After a long string of successes, and a few truly devastating failures, they reach Lord Mial’s, who has long since received word that a potential contender for the throne will enter his village upon a white horse, wearing rags, with two soldiers by his side. (Helmig has taken to riding the horse into town, after several misunderstandings involving Liom being inappropriately hero-worshipped.) 

More upset over the appearance of this potential champion, (starved as a rat, he declares,) than over the plight of his villagers, Lord Mial hustles the three travelers through the streets to his castle, insisting he bring in tailors and all manner of attendants to brush and make up the trio. Helmig draws the line at their horse being taken away, seeing the distraught look in Liom’s eye.

“As _I_ am the champion you have been so _patiently_ awaiting,” Helmig cuts in, a restraining hand on a hapless stable boy’s arm, “I _humbly_ request our needs be attended to only _after_ we have told you what they are.” 

Fridann still wants to grimace at the aggressive phrasing of the ‘request,’ but concedes that Helmig is doing better to phrase it as a request at all. 

“My Lord Mial, you clearly desire to outfit us with new clothing, correct?” 

The lord nods emphatically, his hands twisting nervously together. 

“We will allow this…only after we have spoken to the villagers to determine what steps may need to be taken. To ensure the long-term survival of all involved, of course,” Helmig hastens to assure the lord, whose face had fallen.

“In all of our traveling throughout this great nation,” Fridann jumps in, startling the lord, who only had eyes for Helmig, “We have discovered that the most rewarding state of affairs is a good life for everyone, so we will speak with the villagers to determine how we might better their lives, while maintaining _your_ status and lifestyle as lord of the town, sir.” This seems to take a great weight off the lord’s shoulders, and he wipes his forehead with a handkerchief, smiling tremulously.

“We will set up camp outside, near the stables. The weather is warm enough for it, and we are men of simple means, lord. Too much grandeur unsettles us. We are but humble travelers,” Liom interjects. Helmig glances toward him with his eyebrows high. 

“Travelers with very influential backers and thousands of troops at our disposal,” Helmig reminds him, his amusement clear in the flatness of his tone.

“But you must come with me to the castle! I have so much to discuss with you and your men!” 

“All in good time, sir. We will listen to your pleas. We are simply going to listen to theirs first.” With that, Helmig tugs the horse gently off the main path towards the smell of the stables.

Not unexpectedly, the lord remains stunningly unreceptive to the changes proposed by his villagers, via Helmig and his men. Helmig repeatedly plays to the lord’s anxieties, putting off the tailoring and fancy dressing the lord is clearly itching to get to, waiting for the lord to write down the complaints and agree in writing to their amelioration. As Mial has not experienced any civil distress, yet, as a result of his punishing policies, he views the whole business as a pointless exercise, which Helmig and Liom play up, rushing him through the signing when he refuses to review the clauses a final time. 

Helmig shakes his head as the paper is rolled up and handed to a servant – as soon as he gets out of this castle, he is going to ensure that list is copied, by hand, and distributed to every house in the hamlet, whether or not its inhabitants can read. He senses the instinct of the weasel in this one.

~*~

The lordly dressing is nearly as excruciatingly boring as Helmig feared. 

Fridann and Liom stand at the edge of the room and critique his outfit, which provides amusement for a few hours, but unfortunately, the dressing lasts a good deal longer.

The tailor, once finished with his measurements and the cloth samples, informs the champion that his presence is requested at a banquet to be held in his honor, at sundown. 

Helmig glances out the window and sighs heavily. 

“It’s not a request, is it?” he asks the tailor, who sympathetically shakes his head. 

Helmig sighs again and trudges down to the feast, still wearing the clothes he walked in with that morning.

~*~

The banquet is not the last Helmig has to endure in Mial’s castle, but it is the only one at which he remains the entire time. Mial irrevocably ‘requests’ Helmig’s presence at every banquet, for every night of the coming fortnight, and Helmig flatly refuses. 

“Lord Mial,” he deflects, changing the topic of conversation. “This castle is the nearest of any lords’ to the Capitol, and as the other lords have told you, we intend to take the city by storm, and I will sit upon the throne by season’s end. Now, the only way this plan comes to fruition,” Helmig continues, leaning closer to the lord at the head of the table conspiratorially, “is if those lords that have promised their support receive letters from this location informing them that it is time to send their reinforcements. Obviously, three men cannot take an entire city by storm – not do so and win the hearts of the people as liberators, in any case – and reinforcements have been promised to us. I have in my possession letters signed by every lord of this nation that is willing to send men to assist in this great plan. I need you, Lord Mial, to send a letter to each of them, brought by your fastest horses, telling them the time has come. They are to assemble here, in your town, and we will ride the hard two days to the Capitol and take it by force!” He ends his entreaty with a tightened fist, his words still quiet despite the din of the banquet hall. He watches Mial’s eyes flick around the table, judging which of his entourage he will send on the fastest horses, Helmig prays.

“An excellent plan, Helmig!” the lord exclaims suddenly, grabbing Helmig’s hand and grinning rather wildly. “I shall do so at once!” He releases his hand, leaning back into the center of his seat and Helmig tries very hard not to wipe his hand off on his trousers. “This is very welcome news,” he continues at a more normal volume, “for it means you will be able to take your new clothes with you when you ride!” 

Helmig’s face freezes for a few seconds, utterly stunned that anyone could be thinking about clothes simultaneous with planning for an invasion of the largest city in the region. “Yes, I will be able to do so. Though perhaps you could have them sent to the Capitol only after I have secured it. It would be unwise to carry excess weight on the hard two days’ ride. You will have the honor of being the first lord to present your coronation gifts to me, yes? No one will have to know you had them made up a bit beforehand, am I right?” He winks at the lord conspiratorially, and thinks his revulsion worth it as the lord bounces happily in his seat, already planning new torturous methods by which to turn Helmig into a clotheshorse. 

Commiserating that night with his two friends, Helmig vows then and there to never sit through an entire ‘official banquet’ ever again. 

“Even if I have to develop chronic stomach trouble!” he declares, and the two of them support him in this. Helmig would be displeased to learn, in the coming months, that that is precisely what he has to do.

~*~

Nervously, they wait, for weeks, having watched the lord send out horsemen with letters, as good as his word, the very next morning. The horsemen return within the week, bearing news that every lord is sending men, but gathering them and sufficient supplies will take time, perhaps two weeks. There is nothing to do but wait. 

As the days roll by, a week, then two, the travelers get increasingly restless. To sate their nerves, the three of them begin taking odd jobs, none lasting longer than a few days, which is how the first lord’s forces find them, knee-deep in cow’s blood in the back of the butcher shop, when they stop in for a slab of beef to tide them over. 

However, these are men from the very nearest lord’s estate, and another half-moon goes by before all the promised lords are accounted for. 

Lord Mial’s castle grounds turn completely to mud under the pounding hooves of hundreds of horses and nearly a thousand men. Helmig wonders if this town, sizable though it is, was indeed the very _best_ meeting place they could have picked. But it matters not, because they have all arrived, Lord Jevin, thankfully, among them. After all of Mial's frivolity, Helmig is nearly ecstatic to speak again with someone so level-headed, even if the lord does make too-frequent references to the future state of the nation's politics for Helmig's liking. Fridann makes sure to keep a mental checklist of Jevin's plans, a slight itch in the back of his mind telling him to take advantage of the fact that Jevin may be underestimating them.

~*~

With the day to ride out finally just one sunrise away, Helmig is unable to eat anything at the banquet that night, and extricates himself, begging fatigue from all the excitement. Fridann finds him, and does his best to calm his nerves, and they do sleep, at least. 

~*~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Right after this, chronologically, I have a sexy-times scene written for these two, where Fridann distracts Helmig from his nausea and nerves with a good old-fashioned orgasm. But there's no plot in that, so I'll post it separately as a continuation of this 'verse.


	11. Before the dam breaks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is it, the climatic assault on the castle, where Helmig will take over the throne, backed by the army he has spent this entire journey slowly accumulating.

Helmig refuses to eat any breakfast the next day, not because of nerves, he insists gently at Fridann’s seemingly-offhanded comment, but because he can never keep anything down when he rides a horse. 

This turns out to be a wise choice, as the ride is just as jarring as he remembers, worse when the advance guard peels off and canters ahead, Helmig obliged to go with them. 

When they break for meals, Helmig eats little, insisting that subsisting on water for days on end helps sharpen his clarity of mind.

No one can argue with the results when the Capitol comes into view the third day, Helmig cutting an imposing figure, face severe and hands steady, atop a giant white steed, the leader of a massive army of men, nearly one thousand strong. No letters were sent to the Capitol, so the whispers in the streets are understandable, as is the hastily-assembled line of guards that streams down from the palace gates to obstruct them.

“Halt! Who goes there? What is your business here?” one guard shouts suspiciously.

“I am Helmig the Brave. I have come to seek an audience with your King.” The guards whisper among themselves for a moment, before a second one speaks.

“He’s not expecting anyone. You didn’t announce yourself beforehand!” 

Helmig raises an eyebrow at that, and gestures grandly to the legions of men on snorting, well-groomed horses behind him.

“Have I not announced myself now?” 

The guards whisper among themselves more ferociously this time, and a third guard removes his helmet.

“I will take you to see the King, but only you! Not this entire army! Command them to stay back from the palace, and I will escort you peacefully.”

“Anything you say,” Helmig says mildly, holding up his empty hands. He turns his head, just slightly. “Fridann, look after them.”

“Aye, sir,” Fridann replies, snapping a salute to keep up the appearance of a professional army, despite the way his eyes betray his solemnity. Helmig wonders if only he can see that.

The guards, by this time augmented with reinforcements from the castle, spare only a few of their number to escort Helmig. Most remain behind, suspiciously holding spears to the so-far-completely-peaceful army. 

_Work your magic, Frida,_ Helmig prays as he dismounts, leaving the horse with the suspicious guards. _I know I’ll need you._

Walking as regally as he can manage through the stinking, winding streets, Helmig catches the eyes of every peasant he can as he passes, trying to gauge, using his previous experience, how deeply suffering these people are.

Some part of their initial exchange must have impressed Helmig’s escort, because he does not dally when they reach the palace gates, announcing himself to the guards within, saying only, “This man has arrived for a meeting with the King,” which isn’t false, as far it goes.

~*~

The palace behind the gates is absolutely labyrinthine, with few windows, but out of one, Helmig does manage to catch a glimpse of a slow-moving surge of people toward the palace gates. He swallows hard against the fear that they might fail him, and walks with his chin just a bit higher to compensate.

The King’s audience room is truly cavernous, a wasteland of empty, chilly space that Helmig hopes he can put to better use, in this man’s place. The man himself is a speck of red and gold finery atop his ornate throne, and the escort leaves Helmig nearly at the door, announcing loudly across the distance, that a lord from the North is here to see him. 

Helmig’s eyebrows jump at that title. The guard came to that conclusion on his own, or is lying. Helmig is not sure which bodes worse for him.

During the full minute it takes him to stride purposefully across the plush carpet to the other end of the room, his thoughts are in complete chaos. 

When he is close enough to see the lines on the tired, old, king’s face, his mind goes utterly silent. 

He does not salute.   
He does not bow.   
He does not acknowledge the King’s authority in any way, but simply begins speaking.

~*~

“My name is Helmig the Brave, and I represent 50 of the 65 lords of this realm.” The King’s eyes widen with interest, but Helmig doesn’t let that stop him. “On their request, I have come here today to ask you to bequeath the throne to me, for I represent the people.”

The King stares at him for a moment, then laughs, an ugly, rusty sound, disused and mocking. “And why should I care about the people, Helmig?” He spits the last two words. Helmig manages not flinch. “I am King! None can assail me!” He falls into a coughing fit, parts of the ensemble Helmig previously thought part of the throne convulsing with him. 

_The King must be wearing a truly stifling amount of finery,_ Helmig thinks. _I should relieve him of that burden._

“My army is approaching the palace at this very moment. They are being escorted in by your own guards. 48 of your most highly-valued lords are among them. Their authority is good. All shall let them pass. Within minutes, they will fill this room, all ten thousand of them-” he is exaggerating, but it has the desired effect. The King’s eyes widen in fear. “And we will simply… remove you.”

“Now,” Helmig adds, taking a step closer to the throne’s dais. “Do you wish to surrender, or will we have to remove you by force?”

The King’s loose jowls tremble as he thinks quickly. His army is on the Eastern front, deflecting a menace to their borders. The only men he has to defend the palace are his guards, and if they have been hoodwinked by this mongrel—

“Guards! Guards!” he shouts, seeing pages scatter in the corners of the room to fetch them. But Helmig is shaking his head. 

“That won’t help you, because my people are just around the corner.” The doors on the other end of the cavernous room rumble as they open, a great roar of noise and clanking metal descending upon them, filling the room with palace guards and lords’ guards and Fridann. He brings the lords to the front, and the King quivers as he recognizes them.

“My, my lords!” he begins, but Jevin shakes his head.

“We have listened to Helmig, and we support him. We want you gone, and we have the means to do it. Contain them!” he shouts to his left, and the army of Helmig’s people turn swords and daggers on the palace guards, spread themselves out to fill the corners of the room. It has few exits, and each one is covered within moments of Jevin’s shout. 

The King’s dwindling tactical skills still allow him to see that he has been outmaneuvered. 

He realizes that he has played his last card, and it was not the ace he thought it was. He hangs his head, slowly, like his neck has just lost its strength.

Angry at the ease with which this pitiful husk of a man capitulates, Helmig rounds on the palace guards, the servants peeping in from the ‘hidden’ doors.

“Look at this!” he shouts to them. “Look at the weakness of the man you call King! The entirety of his rule was predicated upon silence, and now, when someone dares to speak--!” He huffs in annoyance, and rounds on the nearest hostile guard. “You there! Has the King fed you well?” The man trembles. 

“Well enough, sir,” he mumbles.

“And your family?” Helmig presses, certain this is the weakest link, the limit of the King’s supposed generosity. “Do they fare as well?”

“Not, not so well, sir. Each man is supposed to earn his own keep—”

“Even the babes?”

“Yes,” the guard answers hesitatingly. “It is hard on the women, as mothers. Those can afford maids do well enough---”

“But it could be better?” Helmig summarizes for him.

“Yes, sir, it could.”

“I will,” he states with the air of a vow. “I _can_ do better by the people of this nation, and I _will_ do better when I am king. I have the promises of every lord here that their people will provide enough food to feed the Capitol, but their own food must come first. This is the price to pay for stability of the realm,” Helmig continues, stalking nearer to the throne and lecturing the King directly now. 

“This city depends on the food from the lord’s lands, and the lords depend on their serfs. If an entire village, 40 days’ ride from here, becomes unable to feed itself, it will collapse. Each and every lord is precious to this city, and as such, we have the duty to defend them from outside threats, so that we all may thrive.” 

Helmig glances piercingly to the palace guard he had been interrogating. 

“What is the point of surviving if we do not thrive? I was born a _street urchin,_ ” he hisses at the guard, watching the man’s eyes for any hint of defiance, “and I have known hunger. Of the kind that ravages, of the kind that kills. Of the kind that slows your very breaths till they are naught but protests of a dying man, pleading with the gods not to be taken so soon. And the gods. Never. Listen.” 

The guard Helmig is staring at begins shaking in his boots. Helmig’s eyes swing back towards the king and for the room at large, he more loudly proclaims, “ _I_ can keep this realm together. _I_ can keep this castle, and _all_ its dependents, fed well. This king has never known lack of any kind! Shall we show him what it feels like!?”

Helmig reaches for the King, grabs him by his frilly collar, pulls him from his seat, and throws him at the assembled crowd. With a great affirmative shout, the assembled lords all rush forward and snatch the king, hoisting him above their heads with many hands, turning right around and flowing out the great doors like a wave. The King’s shouting is nearly lost in the din, but Helmig can see him writhing, twisting and getting entangled in his robes. 

As per their previous instructions, the lords take the king out to the great city’s limits, proclaiming the king dethroned and unmanned and no better than a common vagrant. “Treat him as such!” they shout, dumping the ex-king upon the muddy, shoe-sucking ground in an undignified heap. A crowd of lords and citizens surrounds the king and the few lords with no taste for violence withdraw. 

He is not killed, merely utterly robbed of anything of value, which leaves him without shoes, in nothing but his underwear, at the edge of the great city he is not ruler of anymore. 

Gibbering and stunned, he manages to acquire a coat by the end of the day and sleeps beside a pile of rags and picked-clean bones in an alleyway, where even the other vagrants won’t speak to him. Summer has taken back the nights as well as the days, so he will not be cold for many months yet. But he will go hungry.

~*~


	12. And the fortress walls crumble

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the aftermath of his usurpation, Helmig fares pretty well. The small things start to drag him down, but of all the freedoms he traded to fulfill his destiny, he always remembers to be grateful for the one 'freedom' who never left.

At the castle, Helmig and Fridann both manage to convince the ex-king’s retainers that their knowledge is unquestionably best served keeping the North safe from internal and external threats, no matter who is on the throne. 

With their strategic knowledge secured, Helmig declares a day of open court and willingly hears the appeals of lords who have land disputes, long-standing. Fridann attempts to pull his attention towards more important matters, such as the abysmal army intelligence system, but Helmig insists that without these lords’ support, he could never have taken the throne. 

“I owe them this. Please, Frida.” 

Fridann sighs at the nickname, and capitulates, wandering into the kitchens to speak with the cooks and maids, to reassure them of the stability of their current employment.

~*~

Many months hence, after the ragtag army has fully disbanded, leaving only Fridann and Liom at Helmig’s side, Helmig finds himself run down from fighting daily battles with the bureaucrats he inherited along with the throne, and not all his meetings are as productive or as honest as he’d like. 

After a long, long day filled with just such pointless meetings, Helmig says goodnight to his many, mostly not noteworthy, guests feasting downstairs. He still has difficulty watching silently as so much food goes to waste, the scraps eagerly gobbled up by underfoot dogs. Helmig much would rather see the impoverished of the city fed than the palace dogs, but that is a fight for another day.

Safely escorted through the twisting passages of the castle back to his rooms, Helmig bids his bodyguards goodnight, shuts the door, and proceeds to shed layer after layer of kingly finery as he staggers towards the obscenely opulent bed, sizeable enough for four people, at least. 

Down to one single layer, Helmig removes his gold jewelry with a huff, wriggling his stiff, bare fingers. They have imprints in them from the rings. He heaves an entirely ungentlemanly sigh, which sounds more like a roar, and falls onto the grandiose bed, face first. 

Summoned by his exorbitant exclamation, Fridann walks in from the adjoining room, sticking an arm through his sleep-wear shirt. “And what new travesty has befallen thee today, my liege?” Fridann asks, bowing with a flourish from the waist. Helmig only _hears_ his sarcasm, which is a boon - _seeing_ it would have only made him more exasperated. 

“They told me a king could do whatever he wanted! I can’t even leave the castle without weeks of forethought! On everyone _else’s_ part!” 

“Yes, you are _such_ a slave,” Fridann commiserates half-seriously, taking Helmig’s pounding head between his hands. 

“I am, though!” Helmig whines, shedding every courtly deportment learned through hours upon hours of what he secretly calls ‘lying classes.’ “Why can’t I do anything I want?” He sighs unhappily. “I should just pay someone else to be King. How was that old man not grateful and ecstatic when we came to sweep him away?” 

“He knew no other life,” Fridann supposes aloud, since musing always helps when Helmig is at a loss like this. “You have known both. Have you not noticed there are trades that must be made?” 

“Huh! Power for freedom? Is it even power if I cannot do what I wish?” 

“I am no sage, dear Helmig; I cannot say. It is only clear to me that, if you wish to mandate order, it seems inescapable that it be mandated upon yourself as well.” 

“Order for order, freedom for freedom,” Helmig mutters, body sagging, mind reeling towards sleep. “Can’t I have both...?” 

“Freedom within order is the key, my friend. Freedom within order.” 

“That’s a…contra…diction…” Helmig is almost fast asleep now. Fridann watches his eyes blinking closed and smiles. 

“Hmmm. Is it, though? Think on this, and tell me in the morning.” 

“I...will...later....” 

“Yes, my dear Helmig, later. Now go to sleep, and don’t let the rats get you first.” 

“....Get _you_ first...” Helmig mutters, his face going slack. Fridann’s eyes close too, and they sleep. No one bothers either of them that night, not even a rat.

~~*~~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So! That was my long, rambling, political-philosophical work. It has some porny sequels I'll be putting out as well as separate entries into this 'series', so look forward to that. Anyone wanting to play in the Helmig And Fridann sandbox should feel free! Rarepairs, future-fic, gender-swap-AUs, or just more porn, all of it is welcome! Just give me a name-drop at the start.

**Author's Note:**

> The main pair's names are inspired by Icelandic, which I was studying at the time, absorbed in the now-deleted Thorki fic 'small things' by dee on this website. I made an ENTIRE podfic version, never posted. I was devastated by the deletion of that fic, no lie, so I stopped editing it. 
> 
> Fridann's name was derived from the Icelandic word for 'shield,' inspired by the fanon gloss 'shieldmate' for t'hy'la, from Star Trek TOS. He was written to be the protector of Helmig's heart, his greatest asset. Helmig's name is a twist on 'helmet,' since he's the protector of Fridann's head, which is HIS greatest asset.


End file.
